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Debt Rattle May 16 2024

May 162024
 
 May 16, 2024  Posted by at 9:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Wassily Kandinsky Free Curve to the Point – Accompanying Sound of Geometric Curves 1925

 

• Robert Fico’s Life No Longer in Danger – Deputy Prime Minister (Sp.)
• Slovak PM Robert Fico: Noted Critic of Western Approach To Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• RFK Jr. Cries ‘Collusion’ After Biden And Trump Ditch Him For Debate (ZH)
• Did Michael Cohen Commit Perjury in the Trump Trial? (Turley)
• Clint Eastwood: Justice Prevailing over Authority (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Blinken Tells Ukrainians To Embrace Conscription (RT)
• Zelensky’s Last Roll Of The Dice: A New Forced Conscription Drive (Poletaev)
• The Russians Just Walked In. They Just Walked In (HE)
• ‘Guns & Butter’: Putin Explains Reason Behind Major Cabinet Shake-Up
• US Death Rate Projected to Exceed Births in 2040 – CBO (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Ukr cheats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1790458285184672167

 

 

Russiagate 1.0

 

 

January 21, 2017

 

 

FBI Cyber

 

 

Massie

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lone gunman should get 1 shot max vs 5-6 security guards. This guy got 5. These guards should protect with their lives.

• Robert Fico’s Life No Longer in Danger – Deputy Prime Minister (Sp.)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was injured on Wednesday in a shooting at the venue of the government’s offsite meeting, the Pravda news agency reported, adding that the attacker was detained. “Robert Fico was wounded after an offsite meeting of the government. The attacker shot several times. He was detained by police,” the report said. According to Pravda, the attacker made several shots before the police detained him. The incident occurred after the government meeting when Fico came out to to the public. The prime minister was rushed to a hospital by helicopter.

Earlier, the government of Slovakia decided to focus on humanitarian aid and no longer send weapons to Ukraine. The Cabinet led by Robert Fico did not approve the proposal of the previous government, which concerned sending another package of military aid to Ukraine worth 40.3 million euros. It mainly involved ammunition. This package of military aid was supposed to be the 14th from Slovakia; since February 2022, the republic has sent weapons, ammunition, and equipment to Ukraine worth 671 million euros.

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“Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine,” Fico said. “Our interests will be threatened if it becomes a NATO member state..”

• Slovak PM Robert Fico: Noted Critic of Western Approach To Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Robert Fico’s third term as prime minister of Slovakia put him squarely at odds with both the European Union and NATO on the matter of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The Slovak PM was shot on Wednesday, during a visit to the town of Handlova, and was rushed to hospital for surgery in a serious condition. His attacker has been arrested but his identity and motives have not yet been revealed. “This is not only a shot at Fico and Slovakia, but also at Russian-Slovak relations,” Russian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin said in reaction to the news. “Fico knew very well that the majority of Slovaks, at least half, sympathize with Russia, despite the campaign of deception that rules the roost in Europe,” Zatulin added, noting that the Slovak PM had been “subjected to endless extortion and threats” from the EU over his political positions that ran counter to those of Brussels.

Fico led the government in Bratislava twice before, from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018. He returned to office last October, having campaigned on stopping weapons deliveries to Ukraine and arguing that “people in Slovakia have bigger problems” than the war. The Ukraine conflict “began in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering the Russian population of Donbas,” Fico said at a campaign rally last August. He has also described Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as “clearly a fascist regiment.” Upon winning the election, Fico stopped all Slovak military aid to Ukraine. The previous government had already sent Kiev $728 million worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition. He also refused to join the coalition of about 20 states for buying weapons for Ukraine, led by the neighboring Czech Republic. Last month, Fico said Bratislava would block Kiev’s application to join NATO. Admission to the US-led bloc requires the unanimous consent of all 32 member states.

“Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine,” Fico said. “Our interests will be threatened if it becomes a NATO member state because that is the basis of a large world conflict.” The new government in Bratislava has insisted that the conflict should be resolved through diplomacy – and the sooner, the better. Fico praised the peace plans put forth by China, Brazil and the Vatican, all of which Ukraine has rejected. Earlier this month, Fico pushed back on talk by French President Emmanuel Macron about possibly sending NATO troops to help Kiev’s war effort, saying this would bring the world to the brink of a third world war. “Slovakia has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, and let me send a clear message to the whole of Slovakia: Whoever might ask us, no Slovak soldier will set foot beyond the Slovak-Ukrainian border,” Fico told the parliament in Bratislava.

Just a few days later, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented that “not everybody in the EU” agreed with his assertion that Russia is an existential threat to the bloc, and that some members considered Moscow “a good friend.” While he did not name any names, both Fico and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban have dissented from Brussels on the matter of Ukraine, and have sought to maintain relations with Russia. During his first term as PM, Fico sought to improve relations with Moscow, citing Russia’s support for the Slovakian national awakening in the 1850s. He criticized the 2014 EU sanctions on Russia as “senseless” and harmful to Slovakia’s economy. He has said the same about the expanded sanctions imposed since February 2022.

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Neither have anything to win in debating him.

• RFK Jr. Cries ‘Collusion’ After Biden And Trump Ditch Him For Debate (ZH)

After a morning of geriatric shit talking, President Biden and former President Trump have agreed to a June 27 debate hosted by CNN. The date means that the two will debate before either candidate’s nominations are formally complete, and will be their first televised encounter since 2020. The debate will be held in CNN’s studio in Atlanta, per Axios, citing a network announcement. No audience members will be present, per the Biden campaign’s demands.

President Biden on Wedensday says he won’t participate in the decades-old tradition of three fall debates by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and has proposed two televised debates in June and September – with no audience, RFK Jr. can’t participate, and Trump’s mic will be muted when Biden is speaking. Oh, and they can only be hosted by a regime-friendly network. Outlined in a video message and a letter to the commission, Biden called for direct negotiations between his campaign and the Trump campaign over rules, moderators, and network hosts for the one-on-one debates. He proposed a separate VP debate in July, after the Republican nominating convention and before the Democratic nominating convention.

“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden said in a video released Wednesday, poking fun at Trump’s trial schedule in which the former President is free on Wednesdays. “So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”

According to Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, the commission’s proposed schedule and difficulty in keeping candidates from violating debate rules are the reason for the proposal, the Washington Post reports. “The Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates,” she wrote in a letter. “The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering.”

Trump responded to the challenge, telling Fox News’ Brooke Singman “I’m ready to go…The dates that they proposed are fine…Let’s see if Joe can make it to the stand-up podium,” adding “The proposed June and early September dates are fully acceptable to me. I will provide my own transportation.” Trump and the RNC have also shown interest in ditching the commission, which has held presidential debates since 1988. They have already scheduled three presidential and vice presidential debates starting on Sept. 16, as well as a presidential candidate meeting in Texas that would have been simultaneously broadcast by major networks. “Let’s set it up right now,” Trump told Biden in a May 9 video posted to Truth Social. “I’m ready to go anywhere that you are.”

The two camps will conduct extensive negotiations over the coming weeks, with Biden’s team requesting that only broadcast networks which hosted Republican primary debates in 2016 and Democratic primary debates in 2020 should be eligible to host – meaning CNN, ABC News, Telemundo and CBS News. To that end, Biden has ‘received and accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27th.’As far as moderators go, Biden’s team has proposed that the host be picked from networks’ “regular personnel,” and that the actual debate have firm time limits on answers, equal speaking time, alternative turns to speak, and microphones that are only active during each candidate’s turn.

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“Like their star witness, the prosecutors have shown that they simply do not take the law very seriously when there is an advantage to be taken.”

• Did Michael Cohen Commit Perjury in the Trump Trial? (Turley)

Below is a slightly expanded versions of my column in the New York Post on the first day of cross examination for Michael Cohen. With the government resting after Cohen’s cross examination, I believe that an honest judge would have no alternative but to grant a motion for a directed verdict and end the case before it goes to a jury. Judge Juan Merchan will now have to give the full measure of his commitment to the rule of law. Given the failure to support the elements of any crime or even to establish the falsity of recording payments as legal expenses, this trial seemed to stumble through the motions of a trial. Michael Cohen was only the final proof of a raw political exercise. For critics, some of Cohen’s answers appear clearly false or misleading. Like their star witness, the prosecutors have shown that they simply do not take the law very seriously when there is an advantage to be taken. Cohen has truly found a home with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Here is the column:
On Tuesday, the prosecution surprised many by suddenly announcing that it would rest its case against former president Donald Trump with the completion of testimony by Michael Cohen. It was surprising because the prosecution never clearly stated the crime that it was proving, the elements of that crime, or even why denoting payments related to Stormy Daniels were not properly recorded as legal expenses. Indeed, the only thing the prosecutors proved was that, in the pantheon of dishonesty, there are liars, pathological liars . . . and Michael Cohen. Cohen spent the last two days insisting that he used to be a liar but lied only to help former President Donald Trump. If that is the thrust of his testimony, it is just the latest lie told by Cohen under oath. Cohen has lied to Congress, courts, special counsels, the IRS, the banks, and virtually every creature that walks or crawls on the face of the Earth.

Notably, his past conviction for business and tax fraud were not taken in the interests of Trump but himself. When he admitted on the stand that he lied during his prior plea agreement, that was not to assist Trump who he had already denounced. It was to advance his own interests. There is every indication that Cohen is still lying. Cohen repeatedly said that he could not remember even recent calls after recounting calls from eight years ago with crystal clarity. He said that he could not remember if he leaked information in the case to CNN. However, these paled in comparison to other glaring moments. Take, for example, his testimony on his unethical decision to secretly record a Sept. 6, 2016 telephone call with Trump. It was a breathtaking betrayal that most lawyers would not contemplate, let alone carry out. When asked by the prosecutors about that act, Cohen bizarrely claimed that he did so to guarantee that David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, would “remain loyal to Mr. Trump.”

No one seriously believes that this is true. It does not even make sense. Pecker was speaking to Trump about the payments and even met with him at the White House. Playing for him a call with Trump would produce nothing but confusion rather than pressure for Pecker. Moreover, why would Cohen tape the call without letting Trump know? The obvious motive was to squirrel away material to use against Trump if he ever needed a little leverage. Again, it was for Cohen. Cohen’s testimony showed that he has consistently acted in his sole interest. After portraying his sudden cooperation with prosecutors as a type of Road to Damascus, jurors learned that all roads lead back to Cohen and his bank accounts.

After telling the jury that he has dedicated his life to righting the wrongs of Trump and holding him accountable, he admitted that he repeatedly acted to undermine the prosecution in order to make a buck. Told by prosecutors to stop doing public interviews, Cohen did not care. He did roughly two dozen television appearances and recorded hundreds of podcast episodes. He admitted that Trump is mentioned in virtually every episode, of which he did roughly four a week. He recounted how he raked in hundreds of thousands on books, including one titled “Revenge.” He admitted that he is selling items like a $32 shirt with a photo of Trump in a jumpsuit behind bars and a coffee mug with the phrase “send him to the big house, not the White House.”

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“Eastwood’s movie is guilty of having justice prevail over authority. In the Western world today this is unacceptable.”

• Clint Eastwood: Justice Prevailing over Authority (Paul Craig Roberts)

In Washington, D.C., in 1992 a friend called and said there was a new Clint Eastwood western movie out, “The Unforgiven,” that the Washington Post reviewer said was anti-gun. In lieu of Eastwood’s former movies, we found this hard to believe. My friend insisted we see the movie. We arrived only to find that the next showing was sold out. My friend insisted that we could buy tickets for a later showing and spend the time in a nearby restaurant with good food and drinks. I was more or less captured and reluctantly agreed. When the time came, we reappeared at the theater to find a long line. Taking our place, I was struck by the expressions of the liberal men and women exiting the movie to which they had gone to see Clint Eastwood renounce “gun violence.” They were shaken people. I asked one woman, “Was it as bad as that,” and she burst into tears. My hopes for the movie went up.

It was difficult for the Washington Post morons to hold on to their delusion that Eastwood had joined their anti-gun ranks. One of the morons wrote that Eastwood’s film de-glamorized the Western genre in which right prevails over wrong. (A prostitute’s face is slashed by cowboys, thus ruining her livelihood as a “sex worker” to use the WP’s euphemism. The sheriff, Little Bill, refuses to do anything. The women in the brothel put up a reward for the cowboys execution, and William Munny, played by Eastwood, sees in the reward rescue from failing efforts to provide for two children. What the movie is really about is the view of the great British jurist, Blackstone, who created liberty for the English and the Americans, with his emphasis that the whole of society should protect all of its parts. Otherwise, it was impossible that protection could be extended to any.

Little Bill shows that a person deprived of his guns, his self protection, is beaten and humiliated and has zero protection from law. Munny comes into town sick and suffers the same brutal beating. His parter, a black man, who is no longer willing to kill, turns away from the task and leaves. Guiltless, he is captured and tortured to death by the law administered by Little Bill. Munny rides into town, a killer of men, women, children and “everything that walks or crawls at one time or another.” Little Bill is organizing a posse to go after Munny, but Munny walks into the Salon and kills Little Bill and his deputies. A reporter on the scene is delighted with the story of multiple deaths that he has lucked upon, and begins questioning Munny about who he killed first, reciting a formula given him by Little Bill. Munny tells him he can only tell him who will be last, and the reporter flees the scene.

The truth in the movie is above the heads of the people at the Washington Post, NY Times, NPR, CNN, who tell us Americans how to think and how to perceive the world. The rule of law failed. The sheriff does nothing about the assault on the prostitute. The women in the brothel find this unacceptable. They collect up their earnings and offer a bounty for justice. Munny accepts it and delivers justice. Eastwood’s movie is a rare statement of accountability in our time. Today when the massive sufferings of the American people are ignored while the secret agendas of the elite are supported, one man removed tyranny from a western town. This is not what the American elite, hell-bent on imposing tyranny on Americans and the world, want to hear. And so the excrement that rules us has created its own explanation. Eastwood’s movie is guilty of having justice prevail over authority. In the Western world today this is unacceptable.

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Sign for your death on the dotted line…

• Blinken Tells Ukrainians To Embrace Conscription (RT)

Ukrainians must accept more mobilization as a necessary step toward the country’s eventual NATO membership, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a speech in Kiev on Tuesday. Speaking to students at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, the top US diplomat noted that Ukrainians are relying on his country for continued support, but insisted that they must see the importance of the military draft for the fight against Russia. “Your recent mobilization was a difficult decision, but a necessary one. The defenders who have so courageously held the line for more than two years need help. They need rest,” Blinken said. Joining the military will “allow you to harden your defenses, to build more units, to take the fight to Russian aggressors,” he added. Blinken mentioned members of the university’s community who have enrolled as volunteers, and of whom 88 have been killed in the ongoing conflict, according to the diplomat.

Kiev has recently adopted a radical military reform which is set to enter force this month. It introduces harsh punishments for draft avoidance in an attempt to achieve higher mobilization rates. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has denied consular services for citizens living abroad in a bid to force Ukrainian men of fighting age to return home and take up arms. Russia has estimated Ukrainian military losses this year alone at over 111,000, as of early May. During his visit to Ukraine, Blinken also claimed that the US goal is to ensure the country’s future as a “free, prosperous, secure democracy fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community.” “We are bringing Ukraine closer to, and then into NATO. We’ll make sure that Ukraine’s bridge to NATO is strong and well-lit,” he promised, predicting “tangible” progress along that path later this year.

The US and its allies claim they are pouring assistance into Ukraine to stop Russian imperial ambitions. Moscow, however, perceives the conflict as a US-initiated proxy war against Russia. The increased NATO presence in Ukraine was a major cause for Russian military action, according to its leadership. In 2021, Russia urged the US-led military bloc to sign a binding agreement that would have addressed Moscow’s concerns over NATO’s expansion in Europe, but the call was rejected. In 2022, Moscow sought to sign a peace treaty with Kiev, which would have ensured its status as a neutral nation. The deal was allegedly derailed by the West, in what Russian officials have said was clear evidence that Kiev lacks sovereignty and that the US and its allies have hostile intentions.

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“The fines for violating the mobilization law will also increase tenfold.”

• Zelensky’s Last Roll Of The Dice: A New Forced Conscription Drive (Poletaev)

Mobilization in Ukraine resembles a safari. For example, in one video, we see a man being chased by a car like an animal. In an attempt to save his life, he jumps over a high fence. A man who was watching this scene hid in an attic. Another male almost drowned in an attempt to cross a river on the border with Moldova. However, not all Ukrainian men are so unlucky – various videos on the internet show that there are plenty of them in big cities. We see them sitting in cafes, walking the streets, working, driving, and riding trains. So why aren’t they at the front? In order to answer this question, the Ukrainian authorities have adopted a new law on mobilization, which will come into force on May 18. Most of the innovations prescribed in the new law concern greater control over the registration of conscripts. The new rules are supposed to help the Ukrainian Army system easily find them instead of grabbing guys off the streets, as in the scandalous videos.

Within 60 days of the law coming into effect, all Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 (including those who live abroad) will have to update their military registration data. Men who are not registered for service won’t be able to get a passport or access consular services. In addition, the law restricts “draft evaders” from working in the civil service, and allows TRCs to deprive them of a driver’s license through a court ruling. The fines for violating the mobilization law will also increase tenfold. Why was this drastic law necessary? And will it improve the situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) or only delay an inevitable defeat? At the time of the USSR’s collapse, the Kiev Military District was among the most advanced and combat-ready in the Soviet Union. It had the latest weapons, some of the biggest stocks of ammunition and armored vehicles, and many of the best officers of the Soviet Army were sent to serve there.

For the sake of better understanding, a few words must be said about the Soviet army recruitment system. In peacetime, units were mainly comprised of officers and a minimal number of soldiers who maintained military equipment for combat readiness. In the event of war, within a matter of days, these units were to be filled with reservists who had completed their mandatory military service after school or college. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, this system rapidly fell apart. In 2013, conscription in Ukraine was suspended, but after the Western-backed 2014 Kiev coup, it was restored. However, the system didn’t work. Between 2014 and 2022, the AFU consisted mainly of men serving under contract, and by February 2022, the Ukrainian Army reserve was made up of veterans of the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donbass. According to various estimates, in eight years, up to 350,000 people participated in the ATO and gained practical combat experience.

Meanwhile, compulsory military service and the training of reservists in Ukraine existed merely on paper. Theoretically, all young men had to serve in the army, but in practice almost every potential conscript in Ukraine paid a bribe, and their military personnel file was either “lost” or didn’t even exist (if the bribe was given by the subject’s parents while he was still at school). And if a guy was registered for military service, it was easy to make sure his address of registration and place of residence didn’t match. In rural areas, draft evasion has been less common, and people are more likely to reside at the address that was stated in their documents. That is why there are few men left in certain Ukrainian villages – because so many have been conscripted into the army. The Western press occasionally talks about such situations, but in general, this is a rare phenomenon.

After the beginning of the Russian offensive and martial law, Ukrainian military enlistment offices had to draft people into the army. At first, there were no problems, since there were plenty of volunteers. In the early days of the war, when patriotic enthusiasm was still strong, men lined up to join the AFU. The last volunteer brigades were formed in the winter of 2022-23 to participate in the Ukrainian counteroffensive which was being prepared at that time (in particular, the rather famous 47th Brigade was put together around then), but subsequently the influx of volunteers almost completely stopped. Gradually, the lists of registered conscripts and reservists who had participated in the ATO were exhausted. There was simply no one to send summonses to, since most Ukrainian men weren’t registered for military service and enlistment offices had no information about them.

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Billions upon billions in fortifications never built.

• The Russians Just Walked In. They Just Walked In (HE)

Head of the Mezha Anti-Corruption Center, Martyna Bohuslavets, has written a report in Pravda asking “Where are the fortifications?” She reports that millions of dollars that were intended for the construction of fortifications in Ukraine were instead “transferred to Kharkiv OVA to front companies of avatars.” Bohuslavets said the Ukrainian Kharkiv Regional Military Administration (Kharkiv OVA) paid out funds to fictitious companies during the construction and fortification of the Kharkiv region. The report comes as Russian forces have broken into the northern region of Ukraine and the US continues funding the war. According to Ukranian Pravda reports, the Russian military has begun to advance in the northern region of Ukraine where funding that was set for fortification was transferred to fake companies. The offensive from the Russian military launched on Monday with attacks on towns and villages, the Kyiv Post reports. A total of 7 billion hryvnias was spent there by Ukraine, according to the report.

This comes as the BBC reports that a regional Ukrainian commander in Kharkiv has said that the first line of defense was missing in a massive “betrayal” in the northern region of the country. Denys Yaroslavskyi, a commander in the region in charge of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, told the outlet, “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields.” He told the BBC that government officials claimed to have built up the mines as the first line of defense at a huge cost. He told reporters, “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal.” He then added, “When we were fighting back for this territory in 2022, we lost thousands of people. We risked our lives.”

“And now because someone didn’t build fortifications, we’re losing people again,” he stated. In March, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on the lack of oversight on the funds going to Ukraine during the war. GAO found in its report from March that the Defense Department is lacking in its ability to provide oversight on the resources being sent to Ukraine in the war. The GAO reported, “DOD does not have quality data to track delivery of defense articles to Ukraine. DOD guidance on PDA does not clearly define at what point in the delivery process defense articles should be recorded as delivered or provide clear instructions for how DOD service branches are to confirm delivery.” It added that full documentation of the funding being sent to the military effort has been lacking.

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You need to balance your economy.

• ‘Guns & Butter’: Putin Explains Reason Behind Major Cabinet Shake-Up

Russian President Vladimir Putin has for the first time explained the rationale behind this week’s major cabinet reshuffling, which for the first time of the Ukraine operation saw Sergey Shoigu removed as defense minister (and ‘promoted’ to head of the national security council), and former minister for economic development Andrey Belousov moved into the defense chief spot. He described the decision as due to the dramatic rise in the defense budget and military spending. Putin said of Belousov: “He understands perfectly well what needs to be done in order for the economy of the entire security complex – and the Ministry of Defense as its key component – to fit into the overall economy of the country,” according to state media translation. The Russian president was addressing a gathering of top military officers.

“This is extremely important and relates to the innovative development of industry and taking into account the capabilities of the economy and the budget,” he said, explaining further: “This relationship between ‘guns’ and ‘butter’, so to speak, must be organically integrated into the overall development strategy of the Russian state,” Putin said. “I hope that Andrey Removich [Belousov] will handle this task in the best possible way.” Putin noted that Russia’s military spending has grown to approximately 8.7% of GDP in 2024. While not quite the 13% that the Soviet Union was spending in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War, “these are significant resources, and we have to use them very efficiently and effectively,” the president explained. The appointment had raised eyebrows inside and outside Russia given Belousov has no military experience, nor has he been involved in strategic decision-making regarding the war in Ukraine. Instead, Belousov has always been a ‘numbers guy’ and Russian central bank planner.

The United States was among those countries claiming that the big shake-up points to a destabilizing trend in the Kremlin due to significant losses suffered by Russia in the context of Ukraine, as well as the sometimes devastating cross-border attacks on Russian soil. The Biden administration on Monday said it shows signs of “desperation” for Moscow sustaining the high costs of the Ukraine invasion, also amid unprecedented Washington sanctions aimed at Moscow (but which have by and large backfired).”Our point of view is that this is further indication of Putin’s desperation to sustain his war of aggression against Ukraine, despite it being a major drain on the Russian economy and the heavy losses of Russian troops, with some estimates as high as 315,000 casualties,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said to a press briefing.

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Hmmmm…

• US Death Rate Projected to Exceed Births in 2040 – CBO (Sp.)

The death rate in the United States is projected to exceed the number of births in 2040, Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Phillip Swagel said on Monday. “In CBO projections, deaths exceed births beginning in 2040,” Swagel said during a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute. As a result of this process, the US population would shrink thereafter without a “support” of immigration, Swagel said. Net immigration and birth rates are to decrease between 2024 and 2029, according to CBO data. Swagel also said that higher-than-expected migration became the major driver of the labor force in the United States The CBO has increased its projection of the size of the labor market in 2033 by 5.2 million people from last year, Swagel added.

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Kestrel

 

 

Collie sheep

 

 

Eagle

 

 

Catnip ball

 

 

Moon

 

 

 

 

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